Dharma Vision LLC

Yogi and Johan is the second novel by Mysore N. Prakash which will be published in 2011. This section has a preview of the novel (prologue). Readers are welcome to provide their feedback to the author who can be reached at: mysore@dharmavision.com.

Synopsis

Johan was an ordinary teenager growing up in Plano, Texas. However, his life was nowhere near ordinary as he was tormented by unexplainable horrific visions throughout his childhood. One day, Johan meets a yogi in one of his visions who helps develop Johan into a tennis prodigy. It soon becomes apparent to him that the yogi must have been his spiritual master from one of his past lives.

After an adventurous trek to the high Himalayas, he finally unites with his spiritual master. However, the central question remains: Why did the yogi want him to come to India?

In the first novel of the series, the reader is taken through the early life of Johan, the young American yogi, and his yogic adventures where the reader begins to find the answers.



Yogi and Johan

The Beginnings

A Novel by

Mysore N. Prakash Ph.D.

Prologue

I looked at my watch and saw that it was already 7:00 PM. My American Airlines flight from New Delhi to Chicago was scheduled to depart just after midnight. I still had more than five hours and felt calm since all my packing was already done. The concierge had booked my cab at 9:30 PM, and she had assured me that the cabby would take me to the airport in 40 minutes, giving me plenty of time to go through the departure formalities. I went down to the restaurant and had a quick dinner. As soon as I was done with my dinner, I walked to the front desk to clear my account. The clerk greeted me with a friendly smile and asked me how my stay had been. Everyone at the Taj had been very friendly, and I was extremely pleased with their service.

“Everything was delightful. Nothing to complain about,” I replied enthusiastically.

I gave her my American Express card and waited for her to print my final statement. As she handed back my card with the statement and asked me to sign on the dotted line, she asked me a question I often get asked in India.

“Dr. Prakash, are you from the city of Mysore?”

She was obviously curious about my name. My first name, Mysore, also happens to be a city in southern India. Before I answered her question, I looked into her eyes to see if I could guess her regional background. I could not really guess - she could have been from any of the thirty or so Indian states.

“Yes, I grew up in Mysore. However, for the past thirty years or so I have been living in the United States,” I replied.

“That is very interesting. I have an uncle in Mysore, and my family is from a village called Beerur near Mysore,” she replied with a sense of excitement. Her excitement was like that of a person who had just found a lost relative or a friend.

“That is fascinating. Wherever I go in India, I often meet someone with a connection to Mysore. Isn’t it a small world?” I replied as I took back my card and the statement and bid her goodbye.

I was not in the mood to waste any more time at the hotel. I was anxious to go to the airport on time. I was nervous about the infamous Delhi traffic jams and was not willing to relax until I had completed my check-in at the airport.

I had come to India from Dallas four weeks prior for a business project. One of my clients, a large wireless operator, was looking at several options to expand their network. They needed a business expert to evaluate their options and give them a recommendation on the optimal way to expand their business. They had approached my company as we specialized in such projects. My company had selected me to run the project. I was more than eager to take up the project as it gave me a chance to visit my dad who lives in the southern city of Bangalore. Indeed, I had gone twice during my stay to visit my dad, which had been quite a treat for both of us.

The project had gone very well. I had met marketing, engineering, and business teams from my client’s company, and together we had worked day and night to develop several options for network and business expansion. I had crunched and re-crunched the numbers and had finally developed three recommendations that we presented to the executive team. That was just two days ago. They had liked all three options and had a tough time settling on one of them. In the end, they politely thanked me for my work and told me that they would make the final choice over the next week or so.  I was not bothered by that as I was confident that whichever plan they chose, they would have a successful result. With my work done, I was ready to leave Delhi and eager to re-join my family in Dallas.

I walked out of the hotel towards the cab that was waiting for me. The bell boy had already loaded my luggage and all that was left for me was to thank him with a nice tip. As soon as I got into my cab, the cab driver zipped out of the hotel weaving through the notorious Delhi traffic speeding towards Indira Gandhi International Airport. I was amazed at his skill as he managed to change from lane to lane to keep our car moving. Right at that point, I noticed that there was a long traffic jam ahead of us.  I also noticed that there was some large scale construction in the vicinity.

“Don’t worry, Sir, I know a way to get around this mess. You will be at the airport in no time,” my driver assured me.

He then went over the curb, started going down the side of the highway, and entered a small road that led us into a congested neighborhood. In no time, he was zipping through the area making swift turns while continuously honking. I closed my eyes and started meditating just to keep my nerves calm.

When I finally opened my eyes, my driver had indeed avoided the traffic jam and was back on the highway. The rest of the drive was uneventful, and we were in front of the airport at 10:10 PM. Just as the concierge had assured me, the driver had brought me to the airport in exactly 40 minutes.

I paid my driver as he put my luggage in a cart and helped me get onto a ramp that led to a crowded hall. I went though the first level of security screening where the officer made sure that I was a bona-fide traveler with a valid ticket. After going through security, I got my boarding pass, checked in my luggage, and went through immigration. Finally, I was in the departure lounge with just my laptop in a leather case. I looked at the boarding pass to see that my seat number was 14B, an aisle seat.

I felt greatly relieved and extremely relaxed. I looked around to see if I could get some coffee, and started walking towards a coffee shop that was in the lounge area.

“Can I help you, Sir? We have several varieties of tea. Perhaps you would like to try our spiced tea?” the attendant gave me his pitch, making me change my mind about coffee.

“Spiced tea sounds good. I will have a cup,” I replied. The attendant gave me a big smile approving my selection, and added a little bonus for me.

“I am going to add some extra spices for you, Sir. You are really going to like this tea,” he guaranteed as he took out a plastic bag and added some dark colored material which looked like some sort of dried leaves. I gave him a fifty rupee bill for the tea and walked back to the sitting area. I sat down, completely relaxed, and started sipping my tea.

The tea had a sweetish taste. Yet the spices were subtle and had a soothing effect on me. It felt so soothing that it almost made me sleepy.

At that time, a tall skinny young man wearing torn jeans and a T-shirt with a backpack sat in a seat that was three rows in front of me. He had brownish, wavy hair and looked around six feet tall. His T-shirt had the logo of the Indian Wells tennis tournament. I assumed that he was probably an American from California who was visiting India as a tourist.

I went back to savoring my tea. It seemed like I had never had a cup of tea that tasted so good. I looked up again and stared at the young tourist. He had now settled down and had closed his eyes. He looked like he was sleeping; his legs were crossed in the lotus position. I realized that he was actually meditating. That really got my attention.

The young tourist looked like he was around nineteen or twenty years in age. Up to this point, my trip to India had been normal. I knew instantly that it was not going to be normal any more.

When I looked up again at the young tourist, I was startled that he was not actually sitting on his seat; he appeared to be levitating and I tried to rub my eyes to make sure that I was not hallucinating.  I wondered if the teawala[1] had put some strange substance in my tea. What was that dark powder the attendant added to my tea? Was it bhang or hashish[2]? Myriads of questions went through my head as I looked around to see if any of the other passengers in the lounge area had noticed this young man levitating. It seemed like everyone else was oblivious to what was going on and went about their business in a casual way. Surely, something wasn’t right here, I concluded.

“It’s all right Dr. Prakash. Please come and sit in front of me,” I heard a voice, whisper. From the American accent, I immediately knew it was from that young tourist. The voice frightened me as it was not coming from outside, but rather originating in my own head. How did he do that? Even more frightening was how he knew my name? Reluctantly, I moved to a seat in front of the young man. “Do you want me to call you Satya? I know you have used the pen name Satya Avatar,” the voice added.

The whole thing was incredible to me. I had indeed published a novel The Courtesan and the Sadhu under my pen name Satya Avatar. But how was it possible that someone I had never met in my life could be aware of my name and my background? It made me nervous, frightened, and confused. Nevertheless, I garnered some strength and replied.

“It is true I have used the name Satya Avatar, but you can just call me Mysore,” I whispered.

“No need to talk, Mysore. I can read your thoughts. Let’s just communicate telepathically,” the young man replied still levitating.

“That is fine with me,” I replied in thoughts, trying to be brave.

“You are probably wondering who I am, Mysore. Let me give you some information about my background. My name is Johan. I was actually born and raised in Plano, Texas. I came to India last year to meet a yogi in the Himalayas. He is not just any yogi - he is known as Maha yogi. He has accepted me as his student; and I am on my way to be a yogi too,” Johan explained.

I felt a little better as I was from Plano as well, a northern suburb of Dallas, which was where I was heading. I started believing in Johan’s power to communicate through telepathy.

Nevertheless, my education and religious upbringing got in the way. As someone who had completed a doctorate degree in engineering, I had always considered myself to be rational. I was skeptical of the existence of supernatural powers yogic or otherwise. Perhaps it was the result of my religious upbringing. My mother was a strict adherent to the Advaita[3] tradition and had never accepted the existence of supernatural powers. Indeed, she was extremely suspicious of all people claiming to have supernatural powers. In her belief system, only God, the controller of Māya,[4] possessed powers beyond the laws of nature. Anyone else who claimed such powers was an illusionist at best. On the other hand, my father was more open-minded. Although he had spent most of his life as a mathematician, he believed that there were many aspects of scientific knowledge that were still to be uncovered, and as such science was currently unable to explain many supernatural phenomenon. This, perhaps, stemmed from the fact that as a teenager, my father himself had witnessed a supernatural event for which he had never found a scientific explanation.

Coming back to the present, my thoughts took me back to the cup of tea I had just consumed. Perhaps due to my maternal influence, I was now convinced that this whole thing was some sort of delusional effect of whatever drug was in the tea.

“Do not be silly, Mysore. There was no drug whatsoever in your tea,” Johan said, answering my question.

“What is it that you want from me, Johan? Why have you possessed me? You aren’t going to hurt me, right?” I had to ask him as I was now scared. To be honest, I have never been tolerant of physical pain.

“I am in no way going to hurt you, Mysore. Yogis never hurt anyone. I have come to you because I want you to chronicle my journey, about how I came to meet my guru, and how he taught me the yogic powers.” He paused for a few seconds and continued, “Let us go to the gate now. They are going to announce our flight.”

Johan then opened his eyes and got up. He gave me a faint smile as we started walking towards the gate. I could hear the attendant announcing details of our flight as we walked towards the agent who was standing near a podium ready to collect boarding passes. 

“We will be seated next to each other, and I will tell you my story during the journey,” Johan explained as we walked towards the business class cabin. I looked at my boarding pass and saw my seat number slowly change from 14B to 12A. How my seat number went through that transformation right in front of my eyes was a mystery to me. But this was the least of my worries, and I did not bother thinking about it too much.

When we were settled down in our seats, Johan in 12 B and I in 12A, a flight attendant came to offer us some juices. However, when I turned towards Johan he was in deep meditation again. I put on the headset and started listening to the channel that was carrying some classic rock songs. I soon dozed off and was only woken by the noise of the flight attendants serving dinner.

I was not very hungry and decided to eat lightly. I noticed that Johan was still meditating. After the dinner was over and the flight attendants had cleared all the aisles and turned off the lights, I sat in my seat listening to music wondering when Johan would start telling me his story.

During the last sixty minutes or so since I had met this young American yogi, I had experienced a confluence of emotions. First, I was scared, even fearing that he would do me some harm. As I realized that I was not in any danger whatsoever, I became skeptical, skeptical that the levitation I had witnessed was some sort of an optical illusion and that the voices in my head were caused by some chemical imbalance in my head. However, how had my seat number change from 14B to 12A right in front of my eyes?  There had to be an explanation for all this beyond linear logic. It had to be beyond the known frontiers of science. I suddenly felt a surge of excitement and was now eager to hear Johan’s story, so much that I was now getting restless and started rapidly tapping the back of my palm with my fingers. It was as if I were trying to send my own signals to the young yogi.

A few minutes later, the music stopped, and I could hear Johan’s voice coming clearly through the channel.

“I will now start telling you my story, Mysore. Please pay attention to all the details. I want to make sure that you chronicle the events accurately. Also, I want you to write my story using your real name.” Johan’s voice was clear, and his instructions were specific. I turned to see what he was doing, and, not surprisingly, I found him meditating with his eyes closed.

Over the next several hours, Johan narrated his incredible life story. By the time we reached Chicago, the story that he had narrated had not been completed. He told me that there was more to come and that he would get in touch with me later to give the details. When I offered to give him my contact information, he assured me that it was not necessary.

When we got out of the plane in Chicago, he was on his way to San Francisco whereas I was on my way to Dallas. He smiled at me and vanished right in front of my eyes. It happened so fast that it felt like the rest of the airport had frozen in time and he was zipping through the lines as no one was even trying to stop him or check his papers. Having experienced his powers first hand, I was not surprised by what I saw. That was the last time I saw Johan. However, as he had promised, he continued to get in touch with me through telepathy to update his story and his whereabouts. What follows is the story that Johan narrated to me. It is the story of a young American yogi. This is the story of Yogi and Johan.